Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to review the priority order of Universal Credit deductions; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of ensuring that child maintenance payments have priority over council tax arrears.

The Government is committed to a sustainable long-term approach to tackling poverty and supporting people on lower incomes, and in support of this the Chancellor announced at the Autumn Budget, the Fair Repayment Rate (FRR), this measure is a permanent change and will reduce the Universal Credit (UC) overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer’s UC standard allowance from April 2025. This measure will help approximately 1.2 million UC households with deductions retain more of their UC award, on average £420 a year or £35 per month. In addition to the FRR measure a second measure was to move child maintenance deduction higher up the regulated priority order from April 2025.